StoryRamesh (Nagarjuna) runs away from home during his childhood and gets attracted towards smuggling. He is an expert in smuggling and con activities. He settles in Goa and works for a big-time smuggler Chandra (Ankur Vakil). Something goes wrong in a deal and Ramesh does an unthinkable mistake. ACP Sekhar who is in pursuit of Ramesh nabs him and starts an interrogation. The rest of the story is all about how Ramesh redeems himself.

Artists PerformanceNagarjuna keeps surprising everyone with his looks. He looks slimmer, younger and dashing in the role of Kedi. He is so handsome that he could give any young Telugu actor a run for his money. And the heroines of Nagarjuna should really do something extraordinary to match up to his looks. Mamata Mohandas suited the role well and did commendable job within the limitations of the characterization. Ankur Vakil (Slumdog Millionaire fame) is competent. Sayaji Shinde shines in the role of honest officer. Brahmanandam is partly entertaining. Harsha Vardhan did the role of hero’s sidekick and he has got lots of footage in the movie. Anushka did a cameo in Maya Maschindra song that comes during title cards of the movie. Hindi actors like Nirmal Pandey, Akhilendra Mishra and Kelly Dorji did roles in the movie. The rest of the actors consist of mostly TV artists.

Technical departmentsThe basic arch of the story has it’s roots in Hindi flick ‘Oye LuckyLucky Oye’ (click here for jeevi review). That movie is based on a real life story of a passionate thief called Bunty in Delhi. The screenplay, narrative style and characterizations are inspired by that film. Both films start with hero captured by cops. Then the senior cop starts investigating and the flashback starts with childhood days of hero where he would have a love affair. The rest of the story is narrated through a series of flashbacks from the hero to the cop. The sidekick character is also inspired by OLLO. The director has added terrorist angle to the movie. An interesting aspect of the movie is that both hero and cop characters are realistic. Cop doesn’t hold any personal grudge thief and he treat hero as a fellow human being.

Debutant director Kiran tried to do a different screenplay with this movie and somehow he fails to produce the desired result. The main problem with the movie is that there are no commercial payoffs. One can make a good movie even without having commercial payoffs. But the director couldn’t able to narrate this ‘hatke’ subject interestingly. The movie goes into uni-dimensional mode in the second half and it cost the movie dearly. Music by Sandeep Chowta is adequate. Cinematography by Sarvesh Murari stands out. The locations of Goa are well selected (especially the villain’s house where the bottom of balcony is touches the sea). Dialogues are alright. Stunts are realistic. Art direction is neat.

AnalysisFirst half of the movie is adequate. Second half is disappointing. Nagarjuna should be appreciated for his guts to agree to act in a kind of this movie. If made well, Kedi could have become real class movie and if it’s not then the result could be catastrophic. The debutant director couldn’t handle the script well and it becomes an uninteresting fare. On a whole, Kedi fails to keep audiences interested in the movie.